All This Loss
by wild-sunshine
Summary: Leonardo has been gone seven months. Slash Leonardo/Ezio. Slight Brotherhood spoiler  barely , extreme angst as usual.


Hi!

I'm not familiar with the actual timeline in Brotherhood, so. Slight liberties were taken. Does try to follow it somewhat though!  
>warnings: um, extreme sad stuff. duh. this is what I do, my loves.<p>

Enjoy! And please please please review! I love to know your thoughts on everything.  
>0o0o0o0o0o<p>

Ezio resigns himself to a life without Leonardo, but he never can accept it.

Leonardo has been gone for seven months – it's been seven months without so much as a word from him, no sign that he's hiding, taken, nowhere at all. Seven months without that brilliant smile, without seeing the way he lit up with inspiration, without hearing him talk incomprehensibly fast when he was excited, without kissing him for every freckle on his face, without all the things Ezio _can't live without_. He can't, _can't, _but he has to. He's forced himself to go on like this, realize that this is his new daily life, realize he's moved on to somewhere without sun, but he's never going to be able to accept it. He'll never accept that this is in any way _right, _because he felt it, he _felt _what right was like. Right was the way Leonardo just _fit_ against him, and that's gone. Ezio doesn't believe in anything anymore. He used to, he truly used to, but Leonardo's gone, just _gone, _and Ezio just feels empty. He had every faith in the world, reconstructed after the agonizing loss of his brothers and father, because there was Leonardo, perfect as if created for each other, and it was proof, proof that the world could be beautiful after all.

Ezio spends as much time as possible in Roma, because he has no memories of Leonardo here. In Firenze, the sun sets over the rooftop he brought Leonardo to, kissed him sweet and slow as the golden sky turned tarnished and stars appeared. In Venezia, the water sloshes against the canals, under bridges Ezio lead Leonardo across, hand in hand, promising a beautiful view of the sunrise. But in Roma, there's nothing. The cobblestone streets have a hollow echo, the absence of memories like a blank slate that's erased nightly, stubbornly empty, because nothing lasts, nothing is as important as Leonardo. Ezio never wanted one person to mean this much. After losing his father, his little brother, the older brother he looked up to all his life, Ezio wanted to hide from the possibility of hurting that much ever again.

Losing Leonardo hurt more.

Some part of him still _won't believe it. _Point-blank refuses. When he hears someone mention that the Borgia gave the Apple to some brilliant person to study, his thoughts went instantly to Leonardo, imagined him pouring over the Apple, that curious look on his face. When he meets an assassin named Lorenzo, his mind stutters over the letters, offers up only _Leonardo, _the way it must still feel natural to speak it, even though he hasn't, not in months. Some part of him still looks around corners and opens doors and expects Leonardo to show up, bright eyed and smiling, and every time he's not there, Ezio's heart breaks a little more. He thought Leonardo disappearing would be the last time his heart would be torn to pieces, but he was wrong. Every day, every day without his Leo, it breaks more, hurts more with every time.

People are worried about him. No one ever breathes a word, but it's there. The way his mother studies him, the way Claudia hugs him extra tight, the way Mario squeezed his shoulder when he returned to the villa after returning from the Vaticano to find the room with the easel empty. He pushes ahead in the fight against the Borgia because it's all he can do, all he has left is this thing that's not really his, but that will swallow him whole and consume him. This work will leave nothing of him for himself, and that's what he really wants. That day he kissed Leonardo for the first time, eighteen years old and secretly so nervous, it's never left him. Every memory with Leonardo – each is so beautiful, but they're _over. _He hates that the amount of memories he has of Leonardo is set, is done. None of this is fair. He's saved so many lovers, that when he returned to find Leonardo gone, he thought that someone would rescue Leonardo and bring him back. He thought, foolishly, that the world would return the favour.

Ezio feels aimless in between missions. When he has nothing to do, he feels it, feels how wrecked and ruined he is, something he fights to avoid confronting. He lost much more than Leonardo. He lost every moment they were going to have together, lost every day of all the years ahead of him.

He's almost positive he's imagining it when he hears a voice whispering his name. He whips around, trying to silence the voice in his mind as it wails _please please please be him I can't take it anymore please please. _

"Ezio! Over here!" He nearly dives over the wall before him, stumbling down the side of the building, searching desperately, terrified the voice will disappear, that it was all his own imagination. "Ezio, come here!" He knows this, he knows those words, he _knows that voice. _

"Who's there?" he chokes out, turns, struggles to breathe.

"Ezio!"

_It's him. _Ezio fights the dizziness that overwhelms him, almost staggers, forces himself not to fall to his knees, sobbing. Leonardo has come, seemingly out of nowhere, from whatever dark and dismal place claimed him for all those months, and has finally, finally released him.

Leonardo says- something, Ezio can't hear, can't do anything but gape at him, something in him whimpering. It's him- that smile, those eyes, the same freckles, it's like he walked out of Ezio's memories, out of that last day, seven months ago.

"Come here," he finally manages, and Leonardo's in his arms, for so short a time it's like he's barely there at all, but he's _here. _Leonardo leads him to sit on a bench, sinks down beside him. He murmurs an explanation, skims over the truth about how scared he was, even though Ezio hears it, hears it all.

"Ezio," Leonardo breathes, looking at him, blue eyes filled with everything they can't say here. Every muscle in Ezio's body aches to touch him, needs to wrap Leonardo in his arms and hold him, convince himself he's really here. "I-" he just looks at Ezio for a moment, and Ezio _needs _to touch him, because then he'll be real, then he'll really be here, be _alive. _Because it's only now that he's before Ezio that he can think it – Leonardo disappeared, _he could have been dead, _and it's enough to make Ezio's heart stop, but Leonardo's here. He constantly reassures himself, _Leo's here, he's here, he's here. _"I have so much to tell you," he finally whispers, "it's been-"

"Seven months," Ezio says, and his voice breaks.

"Ezio…" Leonardo says, again, and this time, Ezio gets it. "I wanted to tell you about the war machines-" and he tells Ezio, but all Ezio hears is what Leonardo _isn't _telling him.

"The war machines," Ezio forces himself to say, "this is the only reason you are here, isn't it?" And Leonardo avoids his eyes, draws in a shaky breath, recedes back into wherever he's been, for these past seven months of heart-ripping agony.

"I didn't... didn't intend on coming back," Leonardo says quietly, "the Borgia found me, forced me to work for them, so I couldn't speak to you, and I think... it's for the better, because I can't-" he exhales slowly, pained look on his face. Ezio can't breathe at all, just tries to fight the dawning realization, because this _can't _be true, _can't. _Things _can't get worse. _"They threatened my life, my family, everything- it's not fair, don't you see, Ezio?" The way he breathes out Ezio's name, familiar, wrecks Ezio, something small and quivering inside him beginning to wail. "This wouldn't have happened- none of this, none of it at all- if I didn't know you." Leonardo still doesn't look at him, gaze on the ground.

It's cruelty at its treacherous finest. Ezio has always thought this- late at night, with Leonardo asleep beside him, Ezio always thought that it's his fault Leonardo is in such danger. If not for him, the love of his life would be safe from harm- and if he truly loved Leonardo, wouldn't he want Leonardo to be safe? No matter the cost? In this last, fleeting moment of absolution, the only solace he will ever have is that Leonardo is alive- without him.

"So I can't- I can't, anymore. It's too dangerous, I can't... and to be with you, Ezio, it makes you an easy target, don't you see?" Leonardo's voice breaks, and Ezio understands that this, this is the real reason. "I can't mean this much to you, or else the Templars will be able to break you in an instant… so I can't… I just…I'm sorry." Leonardo looks at him finally, and something like a sob wells up inside Ezio. This is the man he's been in love with for the past eleven years, the love that his life is meant for, and this is what will destroy the little of him that is left after losing Leonardo once.

Losing him forever will take away everything he has left.

Leonardo stands, takes a few steps away.

"But Leo-" Ezio can't stand watching him walk away, hates that there's nothing he can do, and something wild and desperate rears its head within him, crying in despair. "I love you."

"I'm sorry, amore mio," Leonardo whispers, and then he's gone.

Ezio doesn't move, clinging desperately to those moments of sheer elation, not ten minutes ago, when he thought Leonardo had returned to him. He can feel it- this is the last real emotion he has left. He had always wanted to run away from all the terror and pain this life has brought him, has been waiting for the moment it all ends so that he can leave it all behind, seek peaceful perfection with Leonardo. His plan was always, always to be with Leonardo, it was like a given, an absolute, the only thing he could rely on, the only thing keeping him alive. But Leonardo has already gone, escaped and left him here, among the ruins of what is left of his life, because to have him would put Ezio himself in danger. Ezio stands entirely alone, among the wreckage of the most important promise the world ever made to him. He would have sacrificed anything to keep that promise from being broken, but the world misunderstood. Ezio wanted Leonardo safe, and in exchange, the world took Leonardo from him.

Ezio has saved so many lovers, and, in this twisted, heartbreaking way, the world has returned the favour. It allowed Ezio to save Leonardo from the most dangerous thing in his life: Ezio himself.

The most terrible thing of all is the intense sense of gratitude Ezio feels, as his heart burns away to nothing, consumed by the overwhelming loss of everything he loves.

_Amore mio, _Leonardo once said, _I'd sacrifice anything to keep you safe. _

_ Anything but you, Leo. _

_ Anything. _  
>0o0o0o0o0o<p> 


End file.
